Sweet Freedom
by honeyhoneyox
Summary: Review please! Much of the story is AU, including the bits about more minor characters. Love, death, pain, torment and everything that comes with it. Please read.


The feeling of wind clawing at her short locks of violet hair and tearing at her clothes like invisible fingers looking to sweep her from her broom stick allowed her to, for a moment, savour a feeling of freedom. The bliss and peace that comes from a moonless night with a sky so black that upon looking up she cannot see her fingers inches away from her face. Where the stars and the street lamps far below are the only source of light. And the only sounds that meet her ears are the wind rushing past her like a wave from the ocean and the occasional whoop from her partner. A woman not quite so flamboyant as herself, but equally as loud when it came to these types of missions. Screaming into the wind as if there were no one else around, looking for some way to release pent up emotions.

But tonight Tonks was silent, pale pink lip clamped firmly between straight white teeth. Biting down hard enough to draw blood as she remembered the night prior and tasted the metallic flavour of crimson blood against her tongue. She remembered the sound of his voice, husky and warm near her ear. His eyes filled with lust and want and need, everything but love. The one emotion she was so longing to see, to hear and to feel. The thing she had been striving for, for years now and the thing she had yet to receive. But she didn't stop, she couldn't stop, for physically this was what she had been waiting for. Not the butterflies that filled her stomach when he entered a room, and not the giddy sensation she got when their eyes locked. The sense of fulfilment, the banishing of the emptiness that had threatened to consume her whole for so long now.

She remembered how their bodies came together, the sound of the sheets slipping beneath them and the steady 'thud' of the head board against the wall. She remembered the sound of her name on his lips, like music to her ears as they released together.  
But most of all she remembered the downward emotional spiral she was sent into as he pulled away so shortly after. A look of revulsion on his face as he stood up and dressed and left the room without a word. Leaving her feeling more empty than before as the shivers claimed her and she huddled in a ball on her bed. Too tired to cry but too angry to sleep she lay there for a long while until the morning came and she had to rise for work.

And then, just like that, the sense of foreboding freedom that came with flying was replaced by the feeling of falling. The wind was ripping at her harder now, unable to support her weight but pretending as if it could as she closed her eyes and let her arms fly out at her sides. Thinking that perhaps this fate was better than anything she would have to face if she lived to see the outcome of her fall. Falling, boy was she falling, fast and hard toward the ground and she wasn't even sure how she had managed it. She couldn't remember sliding from the seat, perhaps she had simply passed out from sheer exhaustion. Or maybe she had decided that she didn't want to see Remus' face any more and she didn't want to deal with the death of her cousin or the war raging around them. That death was a much better option, a much simpler option. And so, here she was, soaring one last time.  
The last thing she heard as she neared the ground was the screaming of her name, not the same as the muffled cry she had heard the night before. Rather a horrified sound escaping the lips of Emmaline Vance as she plummeted to her doom.

The impact was not what she had expected at all, she had not hit the ground and simply blacked out. Left in the clutches of the after life to move on happily and unscathed. She heard the crunch and saw the light and felt the feeling of what seemed like every bone in her body being broken. But worst of all she felt the brush of flesh on flesh and blood on skin as another body fell beside her. And all she could do was cry, silent tears running down her face as she lay paralysed in position. Forced to live with the physical pain of the fall and the emotional pain of the thought of someone suffering the same consequence as she. It had taken a long while, but eventually she had slipped into what she hoped was death or perhaps even a sleep from which she would never awake.

She woke up days later, gazing into what she hoped was the white light of heaven. It was not until she heard tormented voices and saw a teary eyed face hovering above her that she realised she was in fact alive. In fact, she was laying in St. Mungos surrounded by those she loved. And one she hoped she could manage to hate.  
She didn't look at him the entire time he was there, in fact, she didn't look at anyone. Not until she heard the news that Emmaline was dead. She had stolen Tonks' fate and replaced it with her own. Dying in attempts to save a friend. Damn her.  
She gazed wildly around when those words touched her ears and forced herself to sit up. Nobody tried to stop her when she rose to her feet, her broken bones healed long ago. And nobody tried to stop her when she pushed them out of the room - never once meeting Remus' eye. And nobody tried to stop her as she left, simply left.

She didn't know where to go. She couldn't go home that was for certain. That was where he had slept with her purely out of lust and for that she was disgusted.  
And she couldn't go to her parents' house. Her only family was at the hospital she had left not long ago, and quite frankly, she didn't want to upset her mother any further.

And so, she went to the next best place. A place where sorrows could be drowned in the strongest fire whiskey there is. A place where one can sit in perfect solitude and not be bothered by strangers looking for a good time. A place that was dark and cold and generally uninviting, a place where nobody would think to look because it was a place where she rarely went.  
It didn't take long to aparate haphazardly to the hogs head and stumble inside as if already wasted. Though if she looked a wreck when she entered it was nothing compared to how she looked when she left.

Her hair a mousy brown - often associated with guilt, fell limp around her pale face. Her eyes were blood shot and seemingly emotionless and her face seemed sunken more so than it had been before. And this time not simply because the war was affecting how she ate. This time it was because she had sunken into a pit of deep depression that she no longer bothered to struggle to get out of.  
She drank until the sun went down and the moon came out, a sliver of a circle no where near full. But at the moment she wished it was, she wished Remus Lupin was going through his monthly torture session. Ripping at his own flesh with claws and teeth, creating more scars and leaving himself writhing in pain and confusion on the floor of a cold, empty shack. Cruel thoughts to be thought for the one she had supposedly loved, but she felt it was miniscule compared to the pain he had caused her. Because after all, this was his fault, wasn't it?

The alcohol consumed did nothing for her grieving state. For instead of giving her the uplifted feeling of carelessness, it had deepened her feeling of anger and regret. And yet she couldn't pull the bottle from her lips. She drank and drank until she could consume no more and then she left leaving twice the tab on the table so she could stumble home to a night of misery. Though as she turned on the spot and aparated to a place of comfort, she found herself in front of the old HQ. Her deceased cousins home.

And so that was where she stayed.

Pushing through the door she started down the hall, stumbling like the drunken idiot she was and once more tripping over the foot of the trolls leg umbrella stand. Typical Tonks' behaviour, and as it crashed to the floor, she laughed. A mad, maniacal laughter that rang through the house and awoke the portrait of Mrs. Black which in turn brought Kreacher from hiding. But she didn't care, she didn't care about anything anymore. She could listen to the sound of the vile insults and crude remarks all night long. And had it not been for the powerful force of gravity that is what she would have done. But instead she found herself flying forward once more and reaching out to steady herself.

Another physical pain was added to the emotional that consumed her as she scraped against the wall and then hit the floor. But she paid it no mind and simply pulled her knees to her chest, resting her chin upon her hand as she laughed and wept for what felt like hours but was really a few short moments. Long enough for three last breaths before she succeeded in claiming what she had been looking for since the beginning.

And that was how he found her the next day, the portrait still screaming and Tonks, his Tonks with her back against the wall. A look of madness on her face, a grin upon her lips and a cold lifeless sparkle across her dull, dark eyes. Either driven over the edge of insanity by the curses being wailed, or perhaps killed by the basilisk fang that hung on the wall stained with the blood of her fore arm.  
Either way, she had gotten what she wanted.

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He had spent hours searching every last crevice of Hogsmead and Diagon Alley for the woman he wished he could call his own. The woman he had slept with, marked as his and then left. He knew he had hurt her, and he knew that what he did was wrong. But he couldn't bring himself to stay, not after what he did to her. He had been too caught up in the moment, too caught up to realise the danger she was in. To realise that just by doing this with her he was infecting her. And so he had left.

The knews of her fall had come as quite a shock, and the hurt that filled him was indescribable as she refused to meet his gaze. She deserved to know what he had done, deserved to know how he had hurt her. But she hadn't given him the chance to say what was on his mind. To tell her that he loved her and wanted to be with her for the rest of his life. She had left.

And when he entered number twelve grimmlaud place only to find her cold and dead, it felt as if his world came crashing down around him. He swayed on the spot and gathered her in his arms, tears streaming freely down his cheeks and tainting her pale skin. He had done this, he had caused the loss of her life, and there was nothing he wouldn't do to bring her back.

He knew he would see her again one day, and that was when he could make it right. But for now they had to go their separate ways. He had to live, he had to fight. And she, she finally got what she deserved, freedom.  
"I love you." He whispered, and kissed her cold forehead before letting her go - letting her rest in peace until the day he could join her.  
She would _never_ be forgotten.


End file.
